I want to get to the bottom of this ethanol killing my mpg

[phord]

I fight the e10 like this (i have ford escort zx2 with e10 about 26 mpg in city

[phord]

I fight the e10 like this (i have ford escort zx2 with e10 about 26 mpg in city
after I started to separate ethanol from my gasoline my improved to milage is 36mpg in the city and I dont even hypermill) I buy/put 2 gallons of 89 and 2 gallons of 92 in to my 5 gallon container(so the octane wont go below the 88) then add a cup of water then let it stand for two days then let the ethanol mixture drain(gravity feed) through brass tube attached to clear fuel tubing into clear container so I can see when to stop. Whole operation takes 10 minutes. Yupee

[gone-ot]

...the infamous "water-leaching of ethanol" method!

[Laurentiu]

It's simply unbelievable how naive and plain dumb decisions governments can take sometimes...whilst trying to "fix" a problem, they've created another problem...square peg in a round hole kind of reasoning...



Legend: The monkey represents our countries leaders trying to resolve problems

[TheEnemy]

I noticed a similar drop in one of my 3 vehicles, to the point where I took it to the shop to try to find the problem, they found nothing wrong with it mechanically or electrically.

I travel a decent distance pretty regularly.
Before E10 I would have half a tank when I got there +- a little.
After E10 I would have half way between 1/2 and 1/4. Now there is a station there that sells straight gas. Running mostly straight gas I would get some of the mileage back, but not all. I originally figured that the ECM or injectors were the problem and weren't adapting to the new fuel and instead of spending the money fixing an older vehicle I would just live with it.

The funny thing is, about 2-3 weeks ago I made the trip but was running late so I drove more agressively running between 80-85 for most of the trip. I supprisingly got a little better mileage.

That made me think that the problem isn't the fuel, or the engine, but that E10 burns faster favoring a higher RPM. What I am going to try to do is next time I make the same trip I will retard the ignition by 1-2 degrees and see if that brings it back some. I also have taller tires, so next time I get tires I'll drop a size or 2.

[Nerys]

thats all the water it took? I was going to mix 5 gallons of 92 octane with a gallon of water so I would end up with 4.5 gallons roughly of 88octane which is close enough to the 87 octane regular.

I did not realize it took soo little water to cause the phase seperation to occur. That will sure make things easier.

How much should I agitate it to get a good seperation or do you just mix and let it do its thing?

[shovel]

Originally Posted by Nerys

thats all the water it took? I was going to mix 5 gallons of 92 octane with a gallon of water so I would end up with 4.5 gallons roughly of 88octane which is close enough to the 87 octane regular.

I did not realize it took soo little water to cause the phase seperation to occur. That will sure make things easier.

How much should I agitate it to get a good seperation or do you just mix and let it do its thing?

that all sounds like a lot of work and waste, what are you going to do with the stuff you separate out? E10 has at worst 3.5% fewer btu's available than straight gasoline, because pure ethanol has ~65% as many btu's as gasoline per pound and if we assume a strict 90/10 blend that reduces your btu's by 3.5% so the worst you should expect is a 3.5% reduction in mpg, and that doesn't take into account the fact that the ethanol brings oxygen straight to the party giving you an effective increase in volumetric efficiency vs. straight gasoline because less effort is expended delivering oxygen to the combustion chamber.

So if you're seeing a greater than 3.5% reduction in fuel efficiency, you should just fix what's wrong with your broken cars instead of playing around with all sorts of buckets and funnels and stuff trying to refine your own fuel, unless your time and equipment aren't worth anything... hell then go right ahead

[Nerys]

well shovel. When your the one buying my cars for me and buying my fuel for me then YOU get to decide how I proceed. its pretty simple for me. I see a greater than 3.5% difference in FE between 10% and 8% ethanol!!

Wawa gas is currently around 6-8% ethanol as measured by my little test tube test thingy. Joe's gas in town here is 11% by my little test tube.

On joe's gas I get 40-42mpg on Wawa Gas I get 47mpg. Thats all I really need to know. The only difference "I" am able to measure between the two gas stations is a 3-5% difference in ETHANOL.

all other things being equal YES you should only see a 3.5% drop in FE

alas unlike your little formula'e equations etc.. all things are NOT equal. I believe (NO I can not prove it I am no chemist) that there are unintended consequences to ethanol usage in NON ETHANOL engines that result in greater losses than strictly the BTU differences.

Whether its the alcohol screwing with the computers data for fuel mixture and TRICKING the computer into running much "richer" than it needs to run or some other problem.

if it was ONE CAR I would say 100% yes something is broken on my car. but ALL of them? and the problem MAGICALLY fixes itself when I STOP using ethanol fuel?

sorry the evidence says your full of it.

When I travel OUTSIDE my local area into area's with NO ETHANOL in the fuel I get a simply massive increase in FE.

so tell me. what mechanically in my car magically STOPS being broken simply by putting non ethanol fuel in the car? Explain that to me.

I spent some $300 "fixing" parts in my van before I discovered it was the god damned FUEL doing it. Not the van.

Explain to me how using 3 year old stale PRE ethanol gas in my engine RETURNED my fuel economy back to where it normally is (19mpg in the van 22mpg in the jeep) and the FE IMMEDIATELY went back down to where it is now (16-17mpg van 19mpg jeep) as soon as I ran out of old stale gas and had to go back to ethanol gas?

Explain that to me? the problem is its all anectodal. its VERY conclusive to me but does not help when trying to prove it to everyone else and myself.

SO the only logical and scientifically correct thing to do is TEST IT and to do that I need fuel without ethanol. since i can NOT FIND ANY within a reasonable distance of me and I can not afford (nor do I feel safe) traveling to buy a large quantity. The idea of a 55 gallon drum of gasoline in the back of my van is just a bit unsettling to me and I would need at least 2 drums for any REAL testing. Thats over my "safety threshold" line and way out of my financial means.

now that I Have a metro I only need 9 gallons to "fill up" my car (I typically ise 8.5 to 9.1 gallons to fill when I decide to get gas)

this means I only need to make 10 gallons of gas at a time. this is VERY reasonable and within my means and does not cross my safety threshold line. IE I can make it and immediately put it in the tank all within a few hours of starting.

its worth it to "see what happens"

[Wonderboy]

I'm an advocate of the "see what happens" approach, but unless you have another use for the ethanol you separate, then it seems like a gigantic waste to do all of the time (and (where) would you dispose of it responsibly?). I hate the fact that an irresponsibly wasteful fuel has been mandated based only on politics... but in terms of performance I can't say I've seen much of a reduction in FE from the use of E10...I've actually achieved some of my record tanks (aside from economy run competitions) using it. There are probably several other variables, and I certainly haven't been driving for 20 years, and I've only been paying close attention to my mileage for about 3 years.

My suggestion is: if you work in the same place every day, and there's no reason to believe you will lose or quit the job anytime soon, then I believe you should live within biking, walking, or public transit accessible distance from work. Then the actions of those who have the power to impact fuel (price, subsidies, composition, etc) will have far less of an impact on your life.

My goal is always to try to minimize the potential negative impact anyone/anything has on my life...which I guess is anyone's subconscious goal, but I think sometimes people could think about it harder/more often. Much time ranting and complaining could be saved.

[shovel]

If you're just separating out the fuel once to experiment that's cool, I'm behind it completely.

I thought you were planning to do this long term for all your fuel needs, which just sounds silly to me. Our time is valuable too, yours and mine. And there's the problem of disposing of the separated matter.

You are correct that this is all anecdotal, I just can't figure out why you've had such bad luck when the math doesn't support it and my own direct experience - while not a shining example of scientific rigor - doesn't support it.

If your cars were my cars, after experimenting with straight gasoline and rigorously verifying that the 10% ethanol blend is somehow causing a greater than 3.5% reduction in efficiency, the next thing I'd do is work toward making the cars ethanol compatible rather than complaining about the fuel 'cause at the end of the day - what you can get is what you can get and there's just no sense in setting up a time consuming re-refinement plant in your garage when other people just put fuel in their cars outta the pump and drive without complaints.